RANCHO BERNARDO —— Bob and Jane Moran are no strangers to
working together. During Bob's 25 years of coaching girls softball,
Jane often served as the manager. He took care of the on-field
instruction, while she handled the organization and logistics for
the various teams.

So, they slid seamlessly into the job as lead volunteers for the
Seniors Helping Our Kids program at Chaparral School in Poway. The
Rancho Bernardo residents are in the midst of their busy season,
working with teachers at the school to determine their need for
classroom volunteers and finding people to fill those needs.

That involves coordinating about 40 volunteers out of the
approximately 250 primarily older adults who help out in the
classrooms at 17 schools in the Poway Unified School District. The
SHOK program, created in 1992, incorporates the OASIS reader
tutoring program.

It's also the busy season for SHOK leader Jane Radatz, who is
busily recruiting people to fill the need for volunteers.

"This is the biggest time, at the start of the school year. We
can use new volunteers," said Radatz.

About two-thirds of the volunteers, the OASIS tutors, who put in
one or more hours a week, work on a one-to-one basis with
elementary school students on improving their reading skills. The
rest work in classrooms helping in whatever way they can.

That's the other role the Morans serve with SHOK, each spending
one day a week helping teachers and students. In that job, they
work separately, Jane putting in a full day in Linda Nishiguchi's
second-grade class for the past six years, and Bob working a
half-day with third-grade teacher Scott Rinehart.

"Whatever the teacher wants to have done, we do," said Bob,
retired from General Dynamics. "Anything from helping with reading
or math or with a science project, crafts, whatever the teacher
wants."

Both Bob and Jane said they get a feeling of accomplishment from
watching the students progress over the course of a year. The
individual help they are able to lend allows their teachers to
better focus on the daily lessons for the rest of the class.

The children seem to appreciate the help. The Morans showed off
cards and letters put together by youngsters in their classes,
filled with warm messages from the students.

"On the last day of school last year, eight kids gave me a hug,"
said Bob. "Boy, does that make you feel good."

"It's just so heartwarming," added Jane, who worked at NCR.
"Those little ones, when they write notes, they really put
themselves into it."

The Moran's connection with SHOK began with their daughter, who
wanted to be a teacher, helping out in a classroom. She talked her
mom into joining her, and the year after, her dad joined in as
well. A newspaper article about SHOK attracted their attention, and
they've been involved ever since.

Their success at Chaparral led Radatz to give them the job as
lead volunteers. Their duties take about three-to-four hours a day
at this time, as they set up for the rest of the year. Things
settle down significantly once most of the volunteers are in
place.